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Copying course components between org units

The copy components utility lets you copy quizzes, content, grade items, discussion forums, dropbox folders, and nearly every other type of component from another course offering or a course offering’s parent template. Copying components saves you from having to recreate your course’s resources from scratch and can significantly reduce the amount of work required to create or re-offer a course.

You can use the copy components feature to:

Reuse components created in a previous course offering.

Add components created by your peers into your own course offering.

Set up standard components inside a course template and copy them into a new course offering each time a course is re-offered.

To copy components between course offerings, you must be enrolled in both offerings. (If you want to copy components from a peer’s course offering, ask that user to enroll you). You also need to be enrolled in and have access to the parent template to copy components from it into a course offering.

You can also copy components into a course template, and you can create standard components within a template and then copy them into the template’s associated course offerings.

Overwriting and duplicating content

The only components you might overwrite are course files. Course files are overwritten if one of the files being copied has the same name as an existing file. No other components are overwritten.

For example, if you have three checklists in your current course offering, and copy two checklists from another offering, you will now have a total of five checklists in the current offering. This is true even if the components are identical. If you are copying components from the same source multiple times, be careful not to copy the same items more than once or you will create duplicates.

User data and importing course components

User data is not copied. For example, if you copy the discussions component, only the forums and topics are copied, not the posts inside the topics. Similarly, if you copy dropbox folders, user submissions are not be copied; if you copy quizzes, user attempts are not be copied, etc.

Links and associations between components

Tip We recommend that you Copy All Components between courses to ensure you maintain all desired associations, and then delete any undesired material in the new course.

If you are copying linked or associated components, you must copy all of the related components at the same time. For example, if a discussion topic has release conditions based on the results of a quiz, you must copy all three components—discussions, quizzes, and release conditions—at the same time. Similarly, if you have a quiz that is associated with a grade item, be sure to copy both the quiz and the grade item at the same time. As long as the associated components are copied together, links between them are retained.

Note To copy release conditions, you must select the Release Conditions component.

Special considerations when copying course components

Does not include Files or Content Display Settings; these must be selected as separate components. Be sure to copy all "Course Files" used in the course as well as the content topics or only the Content topic structure will be copied.

Checklists

Due dates for checklist items are not changed when you copy them.

Groups and Sections

Auto-enrollments are not run in the new course. You must enroll users yourself.

Navigation Bars

Tool Display Names must also be copied if you have modified the names of tools.

Release Conditions

The only release conditions that are copied are ones that are attached to and reference other components that are copied at the same time. For instance, if a quiz has a release condition attached that refers to a content topic, it is only copied if both the quiz and the content topic are copied at the same time. Choosing Release Conditions without selecting any other component does nothing.

Copy components

Go to the Import/Export/Copy Components page for the course offering you want to copy components into, by doing one of the following: